As we reflect on our year together, we are also beginning to prepare for our next year at ISS school. Today we discussed our needs, worries, suggestions and the things we are getting excited about, when thinking forward to next year.

We also paid K2LW a visit to ask them some questions about what we can expect in Kindergarten 2. We wanted to know:

What trips will we go on? (Grace)

Do you have a dolls house? (Mirai)

Do you have magnets on the light table? (Anri)

What is your favourite game? (Abulkhair)

Do you learn about science? (Aubrey)

Do you have a cubby with your own name on it? (Abulkhair)

What will we learn about? (Mirai)

Do you learn to read books? (William)

Was it hard to make friends? (Morgan)

Do you have lots of time to play? (Julian)

What's your favourite toy? (Nora)

What is the best part about being in Kindergarten 2? (Ms. Karla)

After our chat, the children from K2LW showed us something they were really proud of and a game their favourite games. K2 looks fun!

Emergent readers benefit from regular opportunities to see, hear and ‘have a go’ at practising reading behaviours. One skills beginner readers need to develop is the ability to return to a text to find specific information.

'Who Am I' riddles are a fun way of doing this. Here is how the game is played:

After reading a story, ask children to solve 'Who Am I'? riddles that focus on characters from the text.

Begin with broad clues and gradually become more specific; e.g. I live near a forest. In my spare time I like to sing. I have long, long hair that I throw done to people when they visit. Who Am I?

Why not try creating 'Who Am I'? clues at home during your next bedtime story and see if your child can make their own? Happy reading!

Throughout the term, we have explored many ways that stories can be told. We have explored the ways that stories can be expressed through music, on iPads, as movies, in books, through drawings (pictures), during our play and through shows at the theatre.

This week, the children were able to choose how they would like to re-tell one of the fairytales we had read as a class. They created groups, based on the story they chose to perform and worked independently to produce a show for others to enjoy. Before we started, we discussed how we would know that we had been successful in entertaining our audience with our plays. We would need to:

Decorate ourselves and wear costumes (Grace)

Decorate the room (Mirai)

Make a stage (Siena)

Make a background (Aubrey)

Have chairs for the people who are going to watch (Julian)

Show a story (Kili)

Use boxes for boats and castles (Morgan)

We had a LOT of fun working on and putting on our shows. Take a look at our great work!

Our current unit of Inquiry connects to the transdisiplinary theme: How We Express Ourselves. In Kindergarten 1, we have been exploring the idea that people share stories in different ways. One of our lines of inquiry is about the difference between ‘real’ and ‘imaginary’ stories. Before we could look at how ‘real’ and ‘imaginary’ are different, we needed to find out what these words meant. During a class discussion, it was decided that ‘real’ was “all the things around us” (Amira), while we recognised ‘imaginary’ as “something that happens your dreams.” (Aubrey) But what are dreams?

Next, we explored our dreams further by painting the things that we dream about.

This week our Star Name was Rapunzel. We were very excited when Rapunzel came in so that we could interview her!

After our interview we looked carefully at Rapunzel's name and practised the sounds and actions for each letter. There were two new letters - 'P' and 'Z', so we worked hard at remembering their new actions, sounds and formation! We counted 9 letters in Rapunzel's name - and compared it to Abulkhair's. Can you work out which name is longer? Even though Abulkhair's name has more letters than Rapunzel, we noticed that they had the same number of syllables! Lastly, we leant a poem about Rapunzel and thought about lots of words that started with the same letter. What a busy Star Name week!

One of the youngest people in our class has just turned 5 . . on Friday we celebrated Aubrey's birthday.

When we returned from assembly our class was already all set up with a banner and a beautiful, delicious cake for Aubrey. All crowded around one table, we sang Aubrey the 'Happy Birthday' song in English and Mandarin. Then Aubrey made a wish. He blew out the candles and we counted as we took them off the cake . . . 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. At the end of the day, Aubrey had some fun goodie bags to give out. Lucky us!

Thank you to Aubrey and his family for sharing your special day with us. Aubrey, we hope you enjoyed your celebrations at school.